Random Things From My Childhood Part 10

(Previously On 'Random Things'...)

Well, here goes... I'm about to post part ten. Thanks for coming down memory lane with me these last few months years. More to come someday...? Who knows!? My memory is an endless treasure trove of crazy memories, as I'm sure you're well aware.

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Random Things From My Childhood, Part X


1. Tumblin Weebles Fun House

I can list half a dozen toys I had as a kid that were missing pieces (probably because we'd gotten the toy at a garage sale) and... I never noticed. Only in later years, when looking at the toy on the internet, would I see that the product I'd owned had been missing a key component or two.

So it is true with the Tumblin Weebles Fun House...

We didn't have any of that yellow track. So when the Weebles would ride the elevator to the top floor of the house, they'd just tumble out the window... and go splat, down on the ground.

Oh sure, Weebles are resilient creatures by nature. No fatalities to report. Still, we kids thought "things falling out of windows" was hilarious! How little we knew.

2. Field Trips

Nowadays, kids in our school district don't seem to go on very many field trips But in the 80s and early 90s, we were going on them what seemed like once a month. I remember going to a farm, a dairy, a restaurant, a ballet, quite a few symphonic performances, several plays, the science museum, a state park, Ft. Vancouver, downtown Portland, and more.

Some field trips were meant to be fun, but others had to have some kind of educational objective, in order to rationalize the expense, I suppose. To make them educational, we were often given workbooks or packets to complete while on the field trip. I remember these dumb things taking hours to complete, sucking any possible joy out of any field experience. Plus, what if your pencil broke? And it wasn't easy trying to constantly find a flat surface on which to write.

Way to suck the fun out of everything, school.



3. Playground Merry-Go-Rounds

They still have these in a few places in Portland, and I've ridden them recently, and... yeah, there's a reason most of them have been taken out. Centrifugal force is no laughing matter.

Oh, but we had fun.

4. Etch-A-Sketch

Oh, excuse me, Magic Etch-a-Sketch Screen.

Yet another toy (see also: kites, Tinker Toys) that made me crazy. I could never seem to master those dials, and it drove me bonkers that A) if you made one mistake, you couldn't erase it, but could only erase the whole picture, and B) your drawing was always connected, with no opportunities for spaces in between.

Give me a piece of paper and a pencil any day (well, maybe not Field Trip Day.)



5. Wendy's "Give A Little Nibble" Commercial



Man, I could do a whole list just on "TV commercials that prompted me to act like the doofy people in them." As a kid, I saw this Wendy's ad and thought, "That's a great way to eat a burger!" And so, for the next year or so, I would regularly pick tiny pieces off my burgers and take nibbly bites. Prettttty sure I sang the above jingle while doing it, too.



6. Nerds Candy

Until this very night, I had no idea that Nerds actually came out for the first time in the 80s (thanks wikipedia!).

I remember loving Nerds because they were tasty and because I liked how the boxes usually had two compartments. Compartments were nifty.

I remember being in first grade and using the candies as food for my Little People.

 I also had these:

I think I still have them somewhere, which is good, because they're going for like $14 a piece on ebay. 

I'M RICH!

7. Cracker Jacks

They weren't even that good. But the prize, oh, the prize!... um... wasn't ever that good either. 

8. McGruff The Crime Dog

McGruff, like Smokey Bear, succeeded in being less about teaching prevention and more about being a somewhat scary, talking, clothes-wearing animal that I mildly distrusted. Smokey wanted me to prevent (whatever that meant) forest fires. McGruff wanted me to take a bite out of crime. 

"COMMIT A CRIME, AND I, MCGRUFF, WILL EAT YOU" was the message I got. 

Dear God, please save me from that trench coat-wearing dog!

No, the other one! Well, okay, that one, too.

9. McGee & Me

If you were a kid in church in the early 90s, and if that church owned a TV and VCR, and if they hadn't already blown their video budget on The Greatest Adventure VHSes, then you were probably subject to numerous episodes of McGee & Me (I mean, there were like 12, but they felt numerous.)

McGee & Me was about a kid named Nicholas who loved to draw and one day drew a cartoon that came to life and acted like Jiminy Cricket from there on out. In each episode, Nicholas learned a lesson about telling the truth, or not being prideful, that kind of thing.

Part of me liked the show, and part of me despised the kid and his entire family.

10. Barkley From Sesame Street

I'm pretty sure I figured out how they did the "hiding behind the tree" trick at least 5 years before it occurred to me that Barkley was a puppet/costumed person and not an actual dog.

Random Things From My Childhood: A Helpful Index

Random things from my childhood is headed for the big 1-0-0! Here's an index of the 90-odd things I've already discussed. Part X to come... oh wait, it's here.


Part X

Tumblin Weebles Fun House
Field Trips
Playground Merry-Go-Rounds
Etch-A-Sketch

Wendy's "Give A Little Nibble" Commercial

Nerds Candy

Cracker Jacks

McGruff The Crime Dog

McGee & Me

Barkley From Sesame Street

 Part IX

Dixie Cups
Playskool Pipeworks
Now You're Cooking
Bouncy Balls
Fisher-Price Crib Activity Center
Sleepover Friends
Sweet Roses Barbie Furniture
Temporary Backyard Swimming Pools
Giant Metal Slides
Somewhere Out There (Song)
Capri Sun


Part VIII

Fisher-Price Little People Merry-Go-Round
Domino Rally
"I Learned It By Watching YOU!"
Play Dough
Tin Can Stilts
Christmas Ornaments That Did Stuff
Tomy Wonderful Waterfuls Basketball
Soft As A Kitten (Book)
Tinker Toys
Piñatas



Part VII

Candy Land
Micro Machines
Newton's Cradle Office Toy
"Movie Monster" for Commodore 64 (Video Game)
Smokey Bear
Tupperware Shape-O Sorter
Super Soaker
Neapolitan Ice Cream
Bike Flags
Nintendo Cereal

Part VI

Lunchables
Tarn-X
Strawberry Shortcake
Fruit Roll-Ups
Mr. Sketch Scented Markers
Glowsticks
Kites
Tootsie Pops
That Fisher Price Toy
Child-Size Record Player


Part V

Ring Pops

Berenstain Bears (Books)

Fluorescent

Magic Slate

"I'm Not A Chicken - You're A Turkey!"

Back to the Future II (Movie)

Goofus and Gallant

Film Projectors at School

Karate Kat

Unicorns

Part IV

Fisher-Price Sesame Street Clubhouse

Charleston Chew

Babes In Toyland (Movie)

Armless Mr. Potato Head

Skateworld

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, Rudy Huxtable-style (Movie)

Cereal Commercials

The Rabbit Of Seville

Piano Lessons

Lady Elaine Fairchild

Part III

Squeezits

Heads Up 7 Up

Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre

Sweet Secrets

Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (Movie)

Easter

Eloise Wilkin

Pogo Ball

Teddy Ruxpin

Final Fantasy Music

Part II

Winter Games (Video Game)

Where's Waldo? (Book)

Tubtown

Nosy Bears

Lego Forestmen's Hideout

The Baby-Sitters Club

Heidi's Song (Movie)

Jelly Shoes

Doublemint Twins

Bubble Tape

Part I

Robert The Rose Horse (Book)

Clowns (game)

Snoopy Brusha Brusha Toothbrush

Dream Glow Barbie

My Buddy

Skip It

Lite Brite

Fisher-Price Movie Viewer

Fisher-Price Music Box TV

The Little Red Caboose (Book)

Random Things From My Childhood Part 9

Random Things From My Childhood

Part IX

(View Parts I - VIII)

1. Dixie Cups

I don't know what kids in other schools got for their random holiday and you've-been-good treats, but at my school, we usually got these. Search Google for "Dixie Cups," and you'll probably just see the boring paper cups people place near the bathroom sink or take on picnics. But I'm talking about the little cups of vanilla & orange ice cream with the wooden spoon thing.

You know...

2. Playskool Pipeworks

Some friends of ours had a set or two of Pipeworks, and I remember spending hours in their garage building things when I was about 12 or 13. I'd take the pipes and the connectors and build any manner of functional objects -- chairs, tables, wagons, cars, even jungle gyms that could support the weight of a 50-pound child. The annoying part was separating the pipes from the connectors (they were really sturdy, and hard to get apart), but despite this drawback, Pipeworks unleashed my inner-mini-engineer, and gave me hours of creative fun.

3. Now You're Cooking

Even as a kid, I enjoyed cooking -- but I rarely got to do it. My mom liked to have the kitchen to herself, and I was usually shooed to the basement playroom, where I had plastic dishes and food and would "pretend eat" the mutant strawberries and mushy lettuce.

Then along came Now You're Cooking, which were plastic dishes with a twist -- you could really cook with them (in the microwave) or serve meals in them. Not only that, but some of the dishes were multi-functional! There were tall spoons that were hollow and could function as straws. Trays could be flipped upside down and be used both ways. And the commercials were oh-so-catchy...

But then I actually got a few sets, and learned about their downside...

"Different than Mom's."

Oh, sure -- the dishes were certainly more colorful than my mother's Correlle. More plastic-y. But you still had to wash them after using them! UGH, CHORES. Who wants to play with something you have to clean after each use? LAME. Go into a box -- into my closet. My future grandchildren can deal with you.



4. Bouncy Balls

We used to have non-carpeted steps leading down to a tiled laundry room in the basement. I don't remember when the game was first invented, but it was pretty simple: one person would sit at the top of the steps with a bouncy ball, and fling it down the stairs as hard as possible. It would, with any luck, ricochet off the laundry room walls. With every launch, it would do something different, land in a different place. Once it came to rest, the person at the bottom of the stairs (assuming they hadn't received a rough blow to the head) would retrieve the ball and give it back to the person at the top of the stairs. After several launches, the two players would switch places. 

We found the game highly amusing -- and our parents didn't seem to mind, except for, perhaps, the noise we made. The same can not be said for the time we thought it would be fun to throw tennis balls from the front yard to the back yard. You know, across the roof of the house.


5. Fisher-Price Crib Activity Center

I am amused by how things have changed since I was a wee lass. Nowadays, babies have to be kept in a crib with minimally-spaced bars, no blankets, no stuffed animals, and no bumpers or else -- DOOM AND DESTRUCTION. Plus we now have baby monitors (with sound if you're a good parent, video if you're a better one). Now they even make little monitors that attach to the baby's diaper that send off a signal if the baby goes for X amount of time without moving.

But in the 80s, we were still in the era of "put a bunch of shiny stuff in the crib and see how long you can leave the baby to its own devices." And that era was awesome.

You'll find several versions of this "activity center" out there, but the one pictured is the one I grew up on. Our church had about four of them, and I could sit there playing with it for ages. To an adult, it may not look like much, but to a toddler, there are like 200 things to do on that toy. 


6. Sleepover Friends

About a year before I got into the Baby-Sitters Club, I saw two Sleepover Friends books in the Scholastic catalog and my parents bought me them. I read them, loved them, and wanted more. I soon discovered they had more of them at our library, and I spent fourth grade simultaneously loving the crap out of the SF's, while ignoring the BSC-gushing the other girls were doing.

Lauren, Patti, Stephanie & Kate > Kristy, Stacey, Claudia & Mary Anne... or so I thought at the time.

The Sleepover Friends were in fifth grade, and every Friday night they would gather for a slumber party at one of their homes. They would gorge themselves on snacks -- chips and dip, Dr. Pepper, whatever -- and watch movies, talk about boys, call in requests to the local radio station, and do random girly things. When they weren't partying, the girls were pwning everyone else at school (especially that horrible brat Jenny and her "sidekick" Angela), hanging out at the mall (usually at the pizza joint) or riding their bikes around town (helmetless and parentless.) 

In my adult years, I have picked up most of the books in the series at thrift stores, since it seems nobody else besides me is ever looking for them. The earlier SF books, especially, are still enjoyable, innocent, and make me want to go order a pizza, guzzle some Dr. pepper, and prank-call a boy.

6. Sweet Roses Barbie Furniture

Behold the shoulder pads!

Let it be known that I, a 9-year-old Barbie enthusiast, was not content to just play with the dolls. Those dolls needed furniture. And around the time I got into Barbies, the Sweet Roses furniture was among the must-haves.

My cousin had the Sweet Roses bed, and I was so envious of its silky pillows and reversible bedspread and ruffles.

MY Barbie "beds" consisted of a hardcover book underneath a doll's blanket, and a beanbag for a pillow.

One year, I did receive the Sweet Roses kitchen, and when my cousin (the one who had The Bed) and I got all our Barbie stuff together, we were able to set up a small Barbie condo. (A camping cooler stood in for the fridge, and the dolls did their bathroom business, you know, in the woods or something.)

7. Temporary Backyard Swimming Pools

You know the ones. The ones your parents bought, set up, maintained, and then sold within a year because they were just too much work.

We'll always cherish the memories of that freezing water!

8. Giant Metal Slides

These are becoming more & more rare, but they're not extinct yet. Here's to burning the undersides of your legs on a warm day! (Second only to the big plastic slides, from which you'd receive a static shock.)

9. Somewhere Out There

It was part of one of the most angst-filled children's films of my youth, yet it was an extremely popular song with kids. Somewhere Out There was the Let It Go of 1986.

10. Capri Sun

I could talk about the fact that the straws were nearly impossible to get in without bending them (or destroying your patience) but instead I really think I need to talk about Walmart.

Stick with me.

In the early 90s, before we even had a Walmart in my region, they played commercials for it on TV, and there was this one that featured an elderly Walmart greeter. He was so freaking cheerful. At one point in the commercial, he would start to clap and sing "Down the Walmart way!" Nooo idea what that meant. Still don't. But it was hilarious.

So this one time, my cousin and I were drinking Capri Sun and doing that thing everybody did where you suck in all the juice and make the pouch flat. Then you, um, put the juice back in the bag, along with air, and make the pouch fat again. Oh yes, the grossness. But anyway. So as the story goes, I had just sucked out a bunch of juice and the bag had flattened, and all of a sudden, my cousin started to sing: ''Down the Walmart way!"

I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. I think I was in the middle of doing a spit-take when I realized I should not spit juice everywhere, so I tried to keep my mouth closed, but then I choked, and... yeah.

Capri Sun.

Random Things From My Childhood Part 8

Random Things From My Childhood

Part VIII

(View Parts I - VII)

1. Fisher-Price Little People Merry-Go-Round



This was one of the sweetest Little People sets. It played music, it moved, and (if grouped with the Ferris Wheel and the Swing Ride) it could give your Little People a pretty decent carnival experience. Both this and the Ferris Wheel were operated by an angry-looking little boy with a baseball cap who was basically stuck to the device, doomed to operate it for all eternity (hence the angry expression, I imagine.) Mine eventually broke, but I still have it. If you wind it up it spins around maniacally and plays the song super fast. Which is actually kind of perfect because I'm thinking of starting a Little People Carnival Of Doom.

2. Domino Rally



So the commercials for this line of toys made them seem AMAZING:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CodjSio8rf8\

But in actuality, Domino Rally kind of sucked. The dominoes would fall down easily, plus they could break off the track if you played too roughly, and by the time your Christmas tree was put out to pasture and the last cup of egg nog was consumed, you typically just had one large plastic disaster.

But those commercials... oh, they were epic....

3. "I learned it by watching YOU!"

So they used to play this anti-drugs PSA during the commercials of Saturday morning cartoons. So imagine me, probably 4, watching Flintstone Kids or whatever was on back then, and seeing this commercial weekly and not knowing what drugs even were.  Just knowing that the dad was angry about something in a box. But today I view the commercial with a certain amount of fondness. Check out Dad's epic mustache! Plus, it's a great thing to shout when someone questions your actions.

Mom: "Ugh, why did you have to go and track muddy footprints through the house..."
Me: "I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU."

4. Play Dough

Play dough was fun and all, but the thing I disliked about it was that if you forgot to put it away properly -- and let's face it, I usually did -- it would dry up and have to be thrown out. And quite frankly, I don't think that's a good quality in a toy. Toys should be durable. They should last the night, at least. (You hear that, helium balloons?)

There are just a handful of other childhood toys that I remember "going bad" through my own neglect. A Little Golden book I left out in the treehouse, which got rained on and warped. A Sweet Secrets toy that played music -- again, left out in the rain and killed. A Spiderman toy I dropped over the fence and never saw again. Yes, these instances were all sad. But not as sad as the fact that every time I received play dough, one of the following would happen:

*I'd mix colors and it would have to be thrown out.
*I'd neglect to press the lid on tightly and it'd have to be thrown out.
*I'd get it everywhere -- under my fingernails, in the carpet, etc., and every last container would be thrown out (or donated to poor farm animals in third-world countries, I don't know.)

Sorry, Play Dough, I wish our memories together were a little happier!

5. Tin Can Stilts

I hesitate to even try to claim these as part of my childhood, because even 100-year-olds can claim them as part of their childhoods. But as I don't know any 100-year-olds who blog, I guess I'll take one for the team and say that these were super fun -- and fairly easy to make -- assuming you could get a hold of two big old coffee cans (not so easy for a kid whose parents didn't drink coffee, but hey), a couple of nails, a hammer, and some string.

Then you could go clomping around, feeling all tall and important.

6. Christmas Ornaments That Did Stuff



Christmas ornaments were always fun to look at, but as a kid -- and, oh heck, even now -- ones that had moving parts or that did something were the very best.

I'm talking about those bubble lights full of delicious mercury.
Those Hallmark ornaments that played music.
Ornaments with little doors or mailboxes that could be opened.

Once I started becoming aware of the existence of awesome ornaments, the rest of the ornaments could just be left in their box, really.

7. Tomy Wonderful Waterfuls Basketball

Remember the Waterful toys? They had all sorts -- ring toss, tic-tac-toe, rings-around-the-shark-nose. We owned the Basketball one. You'd press the blue buttons and a jet of air would propel the little ball through the water into/through one of the two baskets. There were also dials for keeping score but I can't remember ever keeping score. I can remember getting sore thumbs. A good prep for Gameboys in later years.



8. Soft As A Kitten (Book)



My brother and I loved this book because it was one of the only books we had that offered tactile experiences. I guess the subtitle tells it like it is: there was a scratch & sniff page, a page with a warped mirror, pages with stuff you could feel, and our favorite page -- one that let you pull back two tabs shaped like leaves and discover bugs hiding underneath. We would literally fight over who got to "open" the leaves.

Who is hiding here? Peek under the leaves and see.

Then one day, my cousin and I had the book while we were riding in the backseat of the car, and one of us decided to try reading the book backwards. (We were probably seven.)

See and leaves
The under peek
Here hiding is who

And then the Underpeek became a thing, and it induced many, many giggles.

Thank you, Soft As A Kitten!



9. Tinker Toys

Tinker Toys were around throughout my childhood, though they were always kept in a special cupboard and brought out only once in a while. We had the wooden ones, and they were easily broken. Sometimes you couldn't get the sticks into the holes and sometimes you couldn't get them out of the holes once they were in, and in the end you might be able to make some kind of Ferris Wheel -- or you might not have enough pieces of the right size to do so, so you'd end up with a lame windmill, but hey. Like I said. They came out only every once in a while. So they were special.


10. Piñatas

Let it be known that the only thing I like about piñatas is eating the  candy.

I don't like waiting my turn.

Don't care to be blindfolded.

Not a fan of being spun.

Ain't keen on trying to hit something I can't see while everybody laughs.

Not particularly fond of watching a donkey lose its head.

And then the aftermath: Candy falls and everyone jumps in a pile trying to grab what they can and you get an elbow in your eye and when all is said and done you end up with a fistful of licorice-flavored toffee and a lollipop, the latter of which you have to fork over to a crying 3-year-old who "didn't get any" candy because she was too meek to get in said pile.

Gee, you would think I had a childhood full of bad piñata experiences.

AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT.

Random Things From My Childhood Part 7

Random Things From My Childhood, Part VII
(See Previous RTFMC Posts)


1. Candy Land

Why, it's as though someone went inside my very dreams and made a game out of their contents! :-D

Okay, mostly I just liked staring at the game board and drooling. The gameplay left something to be desired.

Oh, sweet, glorious candy... why were not you real?

2. Micro Machines

There's a lot of talk nowadays about assigning gender roles to kids and how buying them gender-specific toys may be harmful in some way or another. Well, I don't know much about that, but I'll tell you this... I had one brother, two years younger, and even though I was the one obsessed with watching Transformers on TV, he was the one who got a Transformer for his birthday. Even though I loved Tinkertoys and blocks, when holidays rolled around, he got Duplos and I got dolls. At first it didn't bother me, because I did like dolls, but one Christmas in particular I got rather annoyed. A relative asked me what I'd like for Christmas, and I told her model kits. When Christmas came, the relative gave me doll accessories... and my brother got the model kits.

Micro Machines, I remember, were one "boy toy" I was not going to let my brother get a foothold on, though. Sure, he's the one that got the giant Micro Machines city that looked like a toolbox and transformed into a sprawling metropolis. But I had spending money, and I made sure I got a few Micro Machines of my own. Sure, he had more, but he could be nice. Sometimes we'd line up all of the vehicles and take turns choosing our favorites. Then we'd scoot them up & down the ramps of that city, past the decals that were starting to peel off, over the bridge that never quite set right in its plastic mold, and down to the marina, where the pink and white micro-speedboat awaited passengers that would never come.

And then there was the guy in the commercials who talked super fast and was on Mathnet that one time. Classic.

3. Newton's Cradle Office Toy

If you had one of these in your home office, why, good sir, you had class.

4. "Movie Monster" for Commodore 64

I remember loving this game because you got to go around destroying things. It was like an early version of Grand Theft Auto. Only with monsters.

Years later, I would reminisce about old Commodore games with my brother, and be all like, "Hey, remember that one game with Godzilla where you could destroy a bunch of stuff?" And he'd say, "Movie Monster?" And I'd look up Movie Monster on the internet and go... "No... it can't be that... the game I remember was AWESOME, and that... isn't."

And then I'd remember that all Commodore games used to look awesome. Because that's all we knew.

Sigh... I guess we'll always have nostalgia to keep us warm.

5. Smokey Bear

Was anyone else afraid of Smokey Bear? I think it had something to do with the fact that he wore jeans and a hat but no shirt, how he always looked angry or somber, and maybe because our teachers/parents neglected to actually explain what the word prevent meant. For all I knew, prevent meant start. What I DID know was that there was this bigass scary bear who carried a shovel, whose name had to do with fire, who talked about fire a lot, and who liked to point at me. OKAY!! I WON'T PLAY WITH MATCHES!!! AUGH!!!! PLEASE DON'T HARM ME!!!!

(It should be noted that I was also afraid or suspicious of McGruff the Crime Dog, the Jolly Green Giant, Mr. Clean, and Mrs. Butterworth, for various reasons.

6. Tupperware Shape-O Sorter

We had one of these at church and it always frustrated me. I could get every shape to go in its proper slot, but once they were in, I lacked the strength and/or coordination to open the device and retrieve the shapes. A kids' toy that a kid can't even fully operate -- how has this lasted for so many generations? 

7. Super Soaker

Don't even think about bringing a mere water pistol to a neighborhood water fight, AMATEUR. The only way to show you mean business is to bring a Super Soaker. And not one of those off-brand fakery water guns, either. Only the original Super Soaker and its brethren. And the bigger number plastered to the side of it, the better. 20? Okay, sure... weakling. 50? Beeeettttterrrr. XP105? Okay... now you're just showing off.

8. Neapolitan Ice Cream

Because when it comes to flavors, why settle for just one? (Hint: Never Settle.)

9. Bike Flags

Before bike helmets became a thing, we were given bike flags. These were meant to make us be seen by drivers of cars. Be seen by drivers, the theory went, and you won't get hit by a car.

But apparently the flags didn't work all that well, because soon afterwards, they took away our flags and gave us helmets instead. It was like they were saying, Uh... so it turns out drivers are incorrigible morons. You're probably going to get hit at some point. Let's just try lessen the impact.

Plus the flag made it hard to park your bike in the garage. Or ride under tree branches. Or look remotely cool.

10. Nintendo Cereal

And again I say: Why settle?

Nintendo was such a huge deal when this cereal came out that even if your parents were too (frugal/strict/odd) to get you an actual NES, you still wanted the cereal. Kind of how little preschoolers play with toy phones and emulate their parents' phone conversations. We poor, NES-less children had to have the next-best thing: the limited-edition box of mutant corn puffs. BUT WAIT! IT'S TWO CEREALS IN ONE! Even if she didn't have a double coupon from Safeway, surely mom would see what a great deal it was!!!!

Or... not.

:(

Random Things From My Childhood Part 6

Random Things From My Childhood, Part VI


1. Lunchables

Cheese. Meat. Crackers. The ability to create your own miniature sandwiches on the spot. A kit of comestible creativity, if you will. Lunchables trumped mom-made tunafish sandwiches every day of the week.

But Lunchables weren't cheap. And if you didn't like one of the ingredients (for me it was cheese as a child, then meat as a teenager) you were sort of screwed. Until, of course, the Oscar Mayer company started making Lunchables with things like mini pizzas and throwing in Capri Suns and tiny candy bars for dessert. But alas, Lunchables were still expensive, and to this day, I have never felt compelled to buy one.

But that ONE TIME my parents bought me one to take on a field trip... I enjoyed the heck out of it. And I made some pretty awesome little sandwiches.

2. Tarn-X

When I was three or four, they used to run Tarn-X commercials during cartoons and kids' shows for whatever reason. I LOVED THE COMMERCIALS. There was one with a man and one with a woman. The woman dipped a coin in Tarn-X and I think the man dipped a small bell. I would've given anything for a bottle of Tarn-X. It made everything magically SHINY! To this day I have never polished silver, but I still think those commercials are amazing. (Though I suspect tricky camerawork may be afoot.)

3. Strawberry Shortcake

There are toys I remember receiving not because I asked for them, but because some relative of mine just thought I should have them. So while I never got the Snoopy Brusha Brusha Toothbrush or the Sesame Street Phone as I desired, I did receive a heck of a lot of Strawberry Shortcake dolls. And they were great, I mean... they were colorful, they smelled good... and there was the TV show, which I remember watching. Anyway, I must have given off some vibe that I was into the big-headed fruit children, because by the time I hit my seventh birthday, I'd acquired not only a dozen little dolls, but a Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox, a baby-sized doll, bed linens, a pillow, and curtains.... It was madness. 

What might be even more mad is that I think I still have most of that stuff in storage. 

Oh, and then there was the Atari Game. I played it once at my cousins' and enjoyed myself. Looking back... wow, that was some serious crap.

4. Fruit Roll-Ups

I really don't know why, but when I was about five, Fruit Roll-Ups were amazingly delicious. Better than cookies, ice cream, birthday cake, or any kind of candy. I think maybe because you could sort of fold them into shapes? I don't know.

Nowadays I rarely touch them. I mean seriously, what's the appeal?

5. Mr. Sketch Scented Markers

These were the best. No, these still ARE the best. Markers each with a distinct smell. Some are eh-okay (see: orange), others are wildly delicious (cherry, I'm talking about you.)

Drawbacks? Instead of getting down to the business of coloring, you'd spend a great deal of time sniffing them. Then you'd wind up with little colored dots on the tip of your nose, not realize it, and walk around like a dork for the rest of the day.

Oh gosh, look at those markers. Look at their colorful beauty. I'm dying of happiness just thinking about their smells! Must... go... buy... a pack....

6. Glowsticks



I have three glowstick-related childhood memories. They are as follows:

1. Being about 5 and at a lodge near the beach with my relatives. Finding a dying glowstick on the ground. My older cousin taking it away from me. Me harboring a grudge against said cousin for years.

2. Going camping with family friends around age 9. Their mom giving us each a green glowstick. Me sleeping in the back of the truck at night and being mesmerized by the thing, feeling like the luckiest kid in the world.

3. "Night games" at youth group retreats, where we had to find glowsticks in a forest... in utter darkness.  While avoiding the adults trying to find & tag us.

Ah, youth?

7. Kites

As an adult, I really think kites are cool. Some of them are made by talented artisans who really care about their craft. And watching them sail through the bright blue sky can be breathtaking indeed.

But as a kid, the idea of kites was much better than the reality. Michael in Mary Poppins made flying one look all easy. In the real world, kites often failed to go up, and even when they did, they quickly ran aground. They were diamond-shaped instruments of disappointment. Plus we were constantly being warned by teachers and the television that kites could run into power lines and cause an excruciating death (and then alternately being told that Benjamin Franklin had once flown a kite during an electrical storm, but that was okay.)

Kites.

8. Tootsie Pops

I don't get Tootsie Pops. Perhaps I never will. The fruity outer part is okay, but when you get through that, suddenly you meet up with this blob of pseudo-chocolate. Blow pops were a lot better. They had gum, man. GUM. Not some weird brown core. 

I remember there used to be this rumor around the elementary school that if you found 10 Tootsie Pop wrappers with little Indians shooting an arrow at a star, you could send them in (to the Tootsie Pop company?) and win something, but nobody ever did. And the Indians weren't that hard to find anyway.

According to Wikipedia, kids who sent in their wrappers got sent... a story... about an Indian. Yay?

9. Whatever The Heck This Thing Was

A Fisher-Price Toy for babies, it had fun activities on all four sides, top, and bottom. I just remember thinking that was really neat, having a different thing to do on each side. Annnnd apparently I was easily impressed.

10. Child-Size Record Players

I had one of these as a wee lass. It was light blue and I think it had Raggedy Ann or somebody on it. I had my own collection of RPM-45 records with storybooks, including The Night Before Christmas, Frosty The Snowman, and a Walt Disney collection of nursery rhymes. This may be why I felt like kicking the guy in a writing class a few years go who mentioned record players, looked at me (I was the youngest person there, circa age 24), and made some comment about how I probably did not know what records even were. Jerk! 

Meanwhile I loved how my little record player had two speeds, so I could make people sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks whenever I felt like it.